The Best American Short Stories 1983 – Complete!

This was a tough one. I just did not have the will to push through the reading of these stories.

Honestly, I thought that this was a bland collection.

Tyler in her introduction said that this anthology “would almost bounce; it would almost shout”.

I’d have to strongly disagree with that statement.

Favorites and their authors -

Carolyn Chute - “Ollie, Oh...”

Joseph Epstein - The Count and the Princess

John Updike - Deaths of Distant Friends

The anthology introduced me to Chute which was pleasant. I like to see a writer like her appear and I look forward to reading more by her in future collections.

The inclusion of Updike, and knowing that he is the editor for the next collection pushed me towards starting research on him and taking on an excitement similar to that of how I felt when dealing with Gardner.

Now with the numbers – I really don’t feel like spending a minute more with this year.

Time to read the book and to finish posts about the collection:

1 month 18 days

which is

6 weeks and 6 days

which

48 days

and this works out to:

1 story every 2.4 days.

Gender profile of authors:

11 Female – 9 Male

And finally, there were 8 stories from authors that had their story originally appear in the New Yorker.

I spent too much time with this book, and I will be happy to place it back up on my bookshelf.

Addresses of American and Canadian Magazines

I've never made a post dealing with this section of the anthology because I never really paid much attention to it.

Searching for something to give me hint as to who the previous owner was, I scoured this book with extra care in an attempt to pick up any clues.

I mentioned in one of the first posts that I felt that this book sat on a book shelf for an extended period of time and that particular shelf had to be facing the sun due to the discoloration of the book spine.

I wonder how this book found its way off that shelf where it sat for years and to a deal who then sold it to me.

So, as the picture above shows, the previous owner of this book made notations next to many magazines throughout the listings.

Were these magazines that manuscripts were sent to? Were they magazines that the owner subscribed to? It could be anything really.

But someone did take the time to make these marks, and I like to think that someone spent a good deal of time considering where to place those marks.

Firstborn – Larry Woiwode

Larry Woiwode - October 30, 1941

Another appearance by Mr. Woiwode.

Shit man...I didn’t need to read this story with a pregnant wife and my firstborn on the way.

I try not to draw connections between an invisible hand presenting these stories to me at certain times... because of times...well...like this.

I do not need to read about difficulties in pregnancy and the loss of a child during childbirth.

And, I do not need to read the above from an author that does it with such skill.

Damn, he’s good.

I mean, he had me really reading at a nice little clip.

I know that it is normal for couples to be nervous about their unborn child, and it seems that with all the advancements in technology, the parents are made even more nervous about the health of their child months before the baby is even born.

All sorts of test for various diseases that my mother, and M’s mother, never had to deal with... but it still does not take away from the fact that they worried about the baby growing inside of them.

I have thoughts that I am reading all of these stories in these collections and in magazines so that I will be prepared for the events that I am soon to face. Events that could be similar to what I am reading.

Will M have a difficult time during labor? Will our child be normal? Will the delivery be smooth?

I suppose that I am extra sensitive to these things just because at this time in my life I am in a position where these things are at least a possibility.

How would I have digested this story, if for example, I had read it 15 years ago in college?

I doubt that it would have had the same emotional impact that it does now.

Shit – I just can’t help but think that I am being prepared for something.

I hate this feeling.

Please...please...please let everything be OK.

Beebee – Diane Vreuls

Diane Vreuls - ? Professor at Oberlin College

It’s a strange thing how we sabotage ourselves. We would think that we have the best intentions for our future, but there is a strange compulsion in us at times to throw a stick into our spokes.

I can look back over my life and see a few decisions that I made where it is clear at the time that I was going to be doing some damage to my horizons. But – as the years passed things worked out.

There are things today even as I struggle with self-disciple when I sabotage my future – like getting through this edition of the BASS. This has been a tough one. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to finish reading the collection and opportunities to finish the postings but I just can’t get thought it.

People struggle with addictions and knowing wish that they could quite the vice that has them under control – a vice that could be harmful to them but they carry on with their actions and could quite possibly damage their health or future.

Problem is, the saying “don’t know what you’ve had ‘till it’s gone” doesn’t really apply because you know what you have and you know that it could be gone but you do nothing to prevent its loss.

Strange thing...us humans.

Reunion – Guy Vanderhaeghe

Guy Vanderhaeghe - April 5, 1951

Nice – a Canadian author. Good to see ‘em represented up there.

Of course...Alice Munro – she ain’t too shabby – and there will be plenty more of her to come.

Guy worked in a library for a bit so that automatically lends me to favor him.

Reunion.

I’ve never been to an “official” family reunion. I think the closest I really come to one is when M and I make our trips over to Romania. Lately, they’ve been occurring about every 15 or so months. We won’t be going for some time now with the baby on the way because we intend to make our next trip over with him/her when he/she is old enough.

When we make out trips over there is usually a day or two that the entire family is able to gather. Both of M’s brothers, their wives and their daughters. M’s parents are there of course.

There have been a couple of times where things have been not so pleasant...but overall, each gathering is very nice. Plenty of food, drink and stories about what the three kids did in their younger years.

At times there are tensions between the brothers and the brothers wives but overall, they keep things very civil and there has never been a situation where communication between the family members has been disrupted. Usually M and I are the ones that hear of the problems that each member has with the other and we hold those pronouncements to ourselves – but knowing them hurts sometimes.

I really think that I’m fortunate to be spared the real uncomfortable situations that can arise at these reunions.

Deaths of Distant Friends – John Updike

John Updike – March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009

This is my third encounter with Updike in this project, and the more I run into him, the more I like him. I think I confessed in my last post about him that I had not read any Updike (at least I had not sought him out to read) before I read him in these collections. I can be sure that I ran into him in a New Yorker, here and there... but his name and the particular story didn’t stick with me. I’ve become much more focused on the authors now with this project and this focus and research has carried over to the stories I am reading outside of these anthologies.

Updike is a big ‘ol target.

There are so many angles you can hit him from. If you love him, there is an abundance of evidence to point to that can steer your argument towards the opinion held by most – that he is one of the finest American authors of the past 100 years.

If you want to find fault in his work, there too, is plenty of criticism out there that you can fall upon which can support your ideas of Updike being less than stellar.

Personally, I think Updike is wonderful.

Judged solely by the three stories that I have read by him so far. I have enjoyed his subjects, his word choice, the meter and pace of the stories – everything. It works for me. – Personally. And I’d like to emphasize the last word there – Personally.

Every writer cannot and will not be great to everyone. I have no trouble and am more than willing to read criticism of authors – and in Gardner’s case for example, I sought out critical essays of him just to give me a well rounded idea of an author that I consider a genius.

More recently, I have come across a passage where Wallace mentions in an interview conducted with, and published by Lipsky, that he had a problem with Updike...but not as much as Franzen(???) – I’m looking for this exact quote and will update this post when I discover it.

EDIT – June 4, 2010

Page 92-93 of “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself”.

"Because Updike, I think has never had an unpublished thought.

And that he’s got the ability to put it in very lapidary prose. But that Updike presents one with a compressed Internet problem, is there’s 80 percent absolute dreck, and 20 percent priceless stuff. And you have to wade through so much purple gorgeous empty writing to get anything that’s got any kind of heartbeat in it. Plus, I think he’s mentally ill.

You really do don’t you?

Yeah. I think he’s a nasty person. And I’ll tell you, if you think I hate him? Talk to – bring up his name to [to J. Franzen]. "

Wonderful! DFW taking out Updike! Gimmie it! I need to know!

Now, I haven’t run across articles where Updike is placed in a position where he has to defend his writing and the repetitive themes of his stories but I am almost sure that they are out there.

From what I have read, Updike is labeled as a writer who writes too much about men, their infidelity, divorces, divorced couples, sex, and.. well.. being narcissistic (this last accusation worded so well from DFW in a book review he did for the Observer).

And another thing – when people criticize Updike’s writing, I’ve found that critics like to throw a bit of criticism in about his physical appearance – especially his smile.

Sly, wry, smart-ass.

C’mon – give the guy a break! That’s low hanging fruit – supporting your argument by drawing the readers attention to his smile!

I’ll remind you and myself of a quote by Joyce Carol Oates - a great friend of Updike.

"When people say there is too much violence in Oates," she says, "what they are saying is there is too much reality in life."

From an Interview in 1980 published in the New York Times.

I think that Updike writes about a certain reality. A reality that makes some of us uncomfortable.

“Too much reality in life”

Now if I am going to defend Updike and use their trick and draw your attention to his smile – I think his smile is one that is telling you that the joke is on you, the reader.

He is giving you reality – the infidelity, the sex, the divorces, the narcissism –

Look at our society today – It’s not narcissistic at all!

What was your last status update on Facebook?

Perhaps on some level, I can relate to the subject matter that Updike deals with in these stories – the thoughts, the introspection, the second guessing of existence.

I just really enjoy the way he writes.

When I look at my spreadsheet of authors (available through the links on the right), I can see that I’ll run into Updike quite a few more times, and I and excited that he will be the guest editor for the BASS 1984.

I have a general feeling about that collection of stories (1984) that I had when I was approaching the Gardner selections.

So, as I mentioned a couple of times. This is my third encounter and I will be looking deeper into Updike. Who knows, I may develop an intense hatred for the writer, but for now – he’s good to go in my mind.

This story -

Here is a beautiful passage from “Deaths of Distant Friends”

“Witnesses to my disgrace are being removed. The world is growing lighter. Eventually there will be none to remember me as I was in those embarrassing, disarrayed years while I scuttled without a shell, between houses and wives, a snake between skins, and monster of selfishness, my grotesque needs naked and pink, my social presence beggarly and vulnerable, The deaths of others carry us off a bit by bit, until there will be nothing left; and this too will be, in a way, a mercy.”

Both of her friends are dead.

John Updike and Raymond Smith

Starlight - Marian Thurm

Marian Thurm - born 1952

This particular story pulled up an interesting series of thoughts.

Early 80s divorce theme appears once again.

I’m sure I’ve had the thoughts before, but at this age and in the current space of life that I’m in now, the thoughts mean a bit more and are a bit more focused.

I thoughts have to do with the feelings that my mother must have had to deal with each time we returned from my fathers house.

I remember she would ask us questions about our visit with him but at the same time, I seem to remember that she wasn’t too invasive – which is funny, because now, she can’t be more invasive when we return from his house. I suppose her curiosity now has to do with his medical problems – thoughts of what her life would have been if they remained together.

As one of two children that was exchanged on holidays and summer vacations, I was in a position where I really didn’t care too much about how each of my parents felt when we left one and visited the other. I was happy to see the new parent and sad to leave the old – and when it was time to reverse the parents, the feelings were reversed as well.

Today though as I write this, I have the thoughts that my mother hurt much more during these exchanges than my father. I feel that my father had no feelings at all about exchanging us with our mom. He could just go back to work and not worry about the extra laundry or picking us up from day camp.

So, the thoughts fall to my mother – the feelings she must have been dealing with all of those years as we were passed between the two of them. The pain of the divorce and the exchanges every several months - it almost seems like salt was thrown on the wound each time.

I just can’t imagine.